Furness moved his head in a fashion that might be considered a nod. After a long time he said: "Is there any ... water in the ... survival kit?" McCauley fumbled. There was. The survival kits were the small parcels which might conceivably mean the difference between dying and not dying if a man had to ditch his disabled plane or jump from a burning one. Together with an inflatable boat, they were included in the X-21's equipment as a sort of pious wish. It was not to be believed that this ship would end its career like a mere atmosphere plane. If the steam-jets didn't work, the most perfect operation of the rocket engine would never get the ship down into the atmosphere, even for destruction. If it got down to the atmosphere there were still several thousand things that could go wrong. It was definitely not likely that its crew could jump to safety in case of need, or land so serenely on water that a rubber raft would do them any good. But the survival kits were there. McCauley gave Furness water. He did not comment on the complications Furness' injury added to a landing problem that was already complicated enough. Instead, he looked at the clock. "We're close to Antarctica now," he observed. "We ought to run into moonlight, too." He peered out of a port. The tiny lighted cabin swam in emptiness, without sound, without sight of anything but remote and indifferent stars. It floated above the part of the world where the Indian and Atlantic Oceans flow together, and where there is unbroken sea all around the antarctic continent. A wind can blow completely around the world there, and rather frequently it does; and the gigantic waves that are engendered are spoken of with aversion by seamen. But McCauley could not see any waves. There was floating ice below, but as he thought of it it changed to the massive ice sheet of the bottom of the world. So the tiny lighted cabin raced over mountains and plains all buried in snow which had been there since the beginning. He turned from the sight of a universe divided into stars and blackness. There was no practical measure to be taken--not now, anyhow. McCauley might contrive a way to get himself safely down to earth, letting Furness take his own chance with no strength to help himself. It seemed improbable in the extreme that Furness could survive a crash landing, even if no explosion followed. There was very little hope that the X-21 could be landed save in a crash. But it did not occur to McCauley that he was relieved of responsibility. A normal landing was not really hoped for. If McCauley piloted the X-21 into orbit and out again, he'd have done the unprecedented and the next try might go better. But he could not imagine himself leaving Furness in a ship headed for a landing that was bound to be a pile-up.... He couldn't expect to land intact himself, with his pilot chute ripped out and torn apart.